Report says mayor's London cycling targets are 'fundamentally flawed'

A report by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) says the central target in London’s ‘cycling revolution’ is "fundamentally flawed".

The report demonstrates how the Mayor’s Transport Strategy is actually anticipating a slow down in the growth of cycling, and calls for the Strategy to be revised if we are to improve quality of life in the capital and reduce pressure on the countryside.

Ralph Smyth, Senior Transport Campaigner for CPRE, said, "The target to increase cycling in London from two to five percent of all trips by 2026 is as lacking in ambition as it is flawed.

"Transport for London assumes that it's not feasible to cycle for journeys of more than five miles. Yet its own surveys of busy routes show that average cycle commuter journeys are already seven miles long today."

CPRE’s report, 'Backpedalling London’s Cycling Revolution', says London should be as ambitious in its targets for cycling growth as large continental cities such as Berlin and Munich, which are rapidly catching up with established cycling cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam.

It says much more effort is needed to increase cycling in outer London, where cycling levels are much lower than they were in 1990, but no funding has been allocated for this, beyond the small amount of money injected for strategising earlier in 2010.